


Not Everyone's Costume Comes Off

by lieforfun



Series: Avengers [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Scars, like lots of them - Freeform, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22047016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieforfun/pseuds/lieforfun
Summary: The thing about scars is that nearly every single one of them is a lesson. A reminder carved into soft skin, no matter how big or small telling you not to do it again.????? I don't even know. Sad Bucky. Happy Bucky? Something.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Avengers [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/204767
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Not Everyone's Costume Comes Off

**Author's Note:**

> It's genuinely 3 am and I'm a mess filled with useless facts. Especially useless facts about the human body and the way it heals.

The thing about scars is that nearly every single one of them is a lesson. A reminder carved into soft skin, no matter how big or small telling you not to do it again. Pink, white, textured or flat as a razor. Whether it’s from slipping in the shower and landing on your chin or wearing the wrong shoes on a bike and ripping apart miles of flesh when you fall. Sometimes scars are there to remind you to love yourself, being the evidence of your own self-inflicted torture. Regardless of how it got there, it’s very likely that you won’t do whatever it was that caused that reminder again.

On the other hand, sometimes scars are lessons for the people who gave them to you.

And sometimes, scars appear without notice.

Bucky often finds scattered white lines on himself, wondering what he did to get their placement. He’ll go to rub his neck and find a puffed-up caterpillar of pink tissue he hadn’t noticed before. Patterns of dots and healed scrapes from the burn of a taser. If he dips his tongue out far enough to taste his lower lip, he can feel the raised bumps from chewing on his own flesh from hunger. And those are the less obvious ones.

Bucky’s arm, the one that is marred with his dangerous past, is also marred with those pink hypertrophic scars. If he really focuses hard enough, if he drowns himself in those memories as he does on the bad days, he can remember what his own flesh felt like under his fingernails as he attempted to claw the rejected metal off his body. He can remember the searing pain as he was just barely able to rip the slightest bit of metal off his shoulder before his body gave in to the agony; while he was passed out, they would come back and repair the damage, and bind him with more force than before.

These days however he doesn’t think about it as much as he did when Steve first rescued him from Shield’s attacks. These days he doesn’t have to look into the mirror often. He’s consistently provided clean clothing to cover up with, and food, and comfort. Steve tries hard not to leave his side as often as possible. But there are times when he is meant to go out on a mission and won’t be back for a few days. These times Bucky tries to pretend he’s normal, and it’s easy to lie to others in a conversation, but it’s much harder to lie to yourself.

He’ll go through the motions. He’ll make coffee in the morning, take advantage of the fridge in their kitchen that’s fully stocked at all times. He’ll find a book to settle down with and stretch out along their couch for hours. Sometimes he would get a call from Tony or Nat, keeping him updated on the mission that Steve was sent out on. Sometimes he would sit at the dining room table by himself with his coffee and spaces out for an entire day. Those days, and these times, that’s when he felt the stinging in the deep tissues holding his shoulder fused with his biggest reminder.

Scars don’t finish healing when the wound has closed up; they are constantly turning while cells are being replaced. And if the wound was deep enough, nerve damage can persist for the rest of your life. So while he thinks that his wounds have closed, that he’s been healed and that he’s safe, he still tosses and turns in their bed. The intensity of the sharp aches and emotional turmoil will never leave him. Not until he submits to his grave.


End file.
